5 ms·

Public transport should be free for everyone, and that is something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for. If it's free more people will use it, which will justif

Public transport should be free for everyone, and that is something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for. If it's free more people will use it, which will justify more investment.

benj111 8y ago
What about induced demand? I agree with the main thrust of what you're saying. But money does serve an important purpose, rationing scarce goods.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It's a fair question. The evidence from Tallinn, Estonia seems useful: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-016-9695-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-016-9695-5
- maxsilver 8y ago
  > rationing scarce goods Transportation should never be a scarce good. If induced demand highlights cracks in our transportation infrastructure, our job is not limit that use but to fix it through increased capacity.
  - saint_fiasco 8y ago
    Increasing capacity might distort the market for other stuff besides transportation. For example it might cause a company that was going to open an office in a neighboring city to open the office in Paris instead.
    - st1ck 8y ago
      So the neighboring city should make it free too?
      - saint_fiasco 8y ago
        If they all can afford it, sure. If they can't afford it they end up with overcrowded buses and then people who don't want to wait a long time for a bus that isn't full have to buy cars instead, and traffic gets worse for everyone.
systemtest 8y ago
I don't think that is fair to taxpayers that don't use public transport because they walk, bike or use a car.
- nolok 8y ago
  I believe the opposite, it's just as fair as when I pay for public healthcare despite being "never sick", when I pay for unemployment compensation despite not needing it, or when I pay for public school despite not having kids. It makes society better because it means less congestions on the street and less pollution, it makes it fairer for those that don't have a choice (because they're too far from work to bike or walk, because their city does not have have the right bike lanes, etc ...), it's the definition of what taxes should be for in a developped society, imho. I'm happy to pay higher taxes for it, despite not needing it since I work remotely and have most place I go to within walking distance by living in city center.
  - shrewduser 8y ago
    Healthcare and unemployment act more like insurance than a service though I don't entirely disagree I just think they're not great comparisons.
    - nolok 8y ago
      Ability to move around to (possible/prospective) jobs locations is a big factor in unemployment. Free public transport means losing my ability to pay for my car doesn't mean I lose the ability to go more than a couple of miles away from my house. Not that the article here is for kids (and in particular for Paris) so my comparisons is not that great I admit but still, living in a rural area I've spent my entire teenage decade dependant on public transport to go to the school my parent wanted for me, to go to "the city" see my friends/visit places/go to the mediatheque where they had computers (!!!), and along with the food cost at school it was a major expense for my parents, that they would have had to cut on if one of them was unlucky and lost his or her job. So it still rings very true to me. But again, given it's about Paris, my exemple is not that great. You probably realized I would probably be ok for it country wide though.
whiddershins 8y ago
I used to think that, I love the utopian idea of just walking on any public transportation for free, and I would happily underwrite a little extra via taxes to make that a reality. But the counter argument really is that the minute you divorce a service entirely from payments, it is at increased risk of rapidly diverging from the needs and desires of the customer (user, consumer). If I choose to bike or walk or take a cab because the train is being terrible, that is felt directly in decreased revenue. I think that’s important for keeping things a little more honest. If someone can do a private shuttle bus more cheaply than the public transit, and it also offers better service, that should be made obvious. If the public service is entirely paid for by taxes, it would be really difficult to see what’s going on.
- entity345 8y ago
  Even if it's free to use they should keep monitoring 'profitability' of every lines, e.g. by assigning a value to each passenger to pay for the upkeep of the line.
  - bko 8y ago
    And then what? In NYC at least the subway and ferry service is very inefficient by pretty much any measure, and that's why they're constantly running in the red. The problem is there is no real feedback, instead they just lobby for more subsidies and higher prices. If there were some kind of feedback, they would prob improve efficiency like reducing service to outer boroughs or charging more for those, stopping ferry service as that's a huge money sink, reduce head count and maybe restructure pension obligations. Instead they're putting usb ports in trains
    - entity345 8y ago
      You're missing the point. There is feedback: usage stats. Public transport is already heavily subsidised in most European cities. One of the aim is to cut car use, not to specifically balance the books of just public transports. The issue is thus to avoid using taxpayers' money to finance lines that run mostly empty.
quotz 8y ago
I live in the Balkans. The previous gov administration made public transport free for senior/old people that are retired (64+ y/o). They just kept spamming the busses as if its an amusement park, it was always full and dirty. They would spend the whole day in a bus, cruising around the city, use it as a meeting hub to meet other old people... Clearly it didnt work.
kodablah 8y ago
> Public transport should be free for everyone, and that is something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for This is location dependent, public transport is not a build-it-and-they-will-use-it expenditure. Where I live, it is not something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for and every time it's done, it goes empty and costs lots. It is the equivalent of just setting a bunch of money on fire.

Public transport should be free for everyone, and that is something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for. If it's free more people will use it, which will justify more investment.

benj111 8y ago

What about induced demand? I agree with the main thrust of what you're saying. But money does serve an important purpose, rationing scarce goods.

icebraining 8y ago
It's a fair question. The evidence from Tallinn, Estonia seems useful: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-016-9695-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-016-9695-5
maxsilver 8y ago
> rationing scarce goods Transportation should never be a scarce good. If induced demand highlights cracks in our transportation infrastructure, our job is not limit that use but to fix it through increased capacity.
- saint_fiasco 8y ago
  Increasing capacity might distort the market for other stuff besides transportation. For example it might cause a company that was going to open an office in a neighboring city to open the office in Paris instead.
  - st1ck 8y ago
    So the neighboring city should make it free too?
    - saint_fiasco 8y ago
      If they all can afford it, sure. If they can't afford it they end up with overcrowded buses and then people who don't want to wait a long time for a bus that isn't full have to buy cars instead, and traffic gets worse for everyone.

systemtest 8y ago

I don't think that is fair to taxpayers that don't use public transport because they walk, bike or use a car.

nolok 8y ago
I believe the opposite, it's just as fair as when I pay for public healthcare despite being "never sick", when I pay for unemployment compensation despite not needing it, or when I pay for public school despite not having kids. It makes society better because it means less congestions on the street and less pollution, it makes it fairer for those that don't have a choice (because they're too far from work to bike or walk, because their city does not have have the right bike lanes, etc ...), it's the definition of what taxes should be for in a developped society, imho. I'm happy to pay higher taxes for it, despite not needing it since I work remotely and have most place I go to within walking distance by living in city center.
- shrewduser 8y ago
  Healthcare and unemployment act more like insurance than a service though I don't entirely disagree I just think they're not great comparisons.
  - nolok 8y ago
    Ability to move around to (possible/prospective) jobs locations is a big factor in unemployment. Free public transport means losing my ability to pay for my car doesn't mean I lose the ability to go more than a couple of miles away from my house. Not that the article here is for kids (and in particular for Paris) so my comparisons is not that great I admit but still, living in a rural area I've spent my entire teenage decade dependant on public transport to go to the school my parent wanted for me, to go to "the city" see my friends/visit places/go to the mediatheque where they had computers (!!!), and along with the food cost at school it was a major expense for my parents, that they would have had to cut on if one of them was unlucky and lost his or her job. So it still rings very true to me. But again, given it's about Paris, my exemple is not that great. You probably realized I would probably be ok for it country wide though.

whiddershins 8y ago

I used to think that, I love the utopian idea of just walking on any public transportation for free, and I would happily underwrite a little extra via taxes to make that a reality. But the counter argument really is that the minute you divorce a service entirely from payments, it is at increased risk of rapidly diverging from the needs and desires of the customer (user, consumer). If I choose to bike or walk or take a cab because the train is being terrible, that is felt directly in decreased revenue. I think that’s important for keeping things a little more honest. If someone can do a private shuttle bus more cheaply than the public transit, and it also offers better service, that should be made obvious. If the public service is entirely paid for by taxes, it would be really difficult to see what’s going on.

entity345 8y ago
Even if it's free to use they should keep monitoring 'profitability' of every lines, e.g. by assigning a value to each passenger to pay for the upkeep of the line.
- bko 8y ago
  And then what? In NYC at least the subway and ferry service is very inefficient by pretty much any measure, and that's why they're constantly running in the red. The problem is there is no real feedback, instead they just lobby for more subsidies and higher prices. If there were some kind of feedback, they would prob improve efficiency like reducing service to outer boroughs or charging more for those, stopping ferry service as that's a huge money sink, reduce head count and maybe restructure pension obligations. Instead they're putting usb ports in trains
  - entity345 8y ago
    You're missing the point. There is feedback: usage stats. Public transport is already heavily subsidised in most European cities. One of the aim is to cut car use, not to specifically balance the books of just public transports. The issue is thus to avoid using taxpayers' money to finance lines that run mostly empty.

quotz 8y ago

I live in the Balkans. The previous gov administration made public transport free for senior/old people that are retired (64+ y/o). They just kept spamming the busses as if its an amusement park, it was always full and dirty. They would spend the whole day in a bus, cruising around the city, use it as a meeting hub to meet other old people... Clearly it didnt work.

kodablah 8y ago

> Public transport should be free for everyone, and that is something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for This is location dependent, public transport is not a build-it-and-they-will-use-it expenditure. Where I live, it is not something I'm willing to pay higher taxes for and every time it's done, it goes empty and costs lots. It is the equivalent of just setting a bunch of money on fire.